North Carolina Criminal Law

Among the most recent batch of opinions issued by the Court of Appeals was State v. Tellez, in which the court upheld the defendant’s conviction of two counts of second-degree […]

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In previous posts [editor’s note: her prior posts are here and here] I have written about the developing North Carolina law on the use of substitute analysts after Melendez-Diaz. In […]

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On October 20, 2009, the North Carolina Court of Appeals decided State v. Galindo, holding that a Crawford violation occurred when the State’s expert gave an opinion, in a drug […]

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Most readers of this blog know that hearsay evidence, meaning an out-of-court statement “offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted,” N.C. R. Evid. 801(c), is presumptively […]

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I recently completed an Administration of Justice Bulletin on evidentiary issues in sex crimes cases. It’s available for free here. It covers the application of N.C. R. Evid. 412, i.e., […]

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Melendez-Diaz v. Massachussetts, as most readers of this blog know, is the United States Supreme Court’s latest pronouncement on the Confrontation Clause. Generally, it holds that forensic laboratory reports — […]

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Last Friday, the North Carolina Supreme Court decided State v. Locklear, holding, in part, that a Crawford violation occurred when the trial court admitted opinion testimony regarding a victim’s cause […]

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The longest opinion issued by the court of appeals this week was Judge Ervin’s 45-page treatise in State v. Ward, __ N.C. App. __ (2009). Although the opinion contains other […]

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There has been an endless parade of relevant news over the past week or so. First, Justice Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in. This New York […]

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In my last post on this topic, I addressed the “new rule” prong of Teague retroactivity analysis as it applies to Melendez-Diaz. I ended that post by noting that another […]

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